Spell Maven Mysteries- The Complete Series

by J L Collins

  Aunt Ginevra shook her head as she went to look over Aunt Bedelia’s shoulder to read the pages as she flipped them. “You threatened to report them to the MARC for not complying with a top official’s orders after it was clear you were not going to win against the two of them,” she said impatiently. “Really, Gard.”

  “I wasn’t wrong. I could technically do that and—you know what? It doesn’t matter.” He took a few steps forward, his hand flexing over the head of his cane. “I don’t know what the Archmage will have to say about all this though. Bacchus might see it as a personal offense to him by my not getting his permission. It was worth it. We got what we needed.”

  Maybe it was because he was too busy recalling his effort to us, but it took him a moment to really take a good look around the room where everyone was practically holding their breath, waiting.

  When his gaze drifted from me to Sully, he zeroed in on the way Sully’s hand was intertwined tightly with mine. My stomach clenched in on itself. I wanted to scream at him, I wanted to tell him to get over himself, and that Sully was best kind of man I could ask for. Uncle Gardner didn’t know him…he had no right to stand there and look at us like that.

  But just as quickly as he looked at us, he turned away. “Bedelia. Ginny. See if you can help me find the spell Drakar used somewhere in here.”

  Sully squeezed my hand. “Real marshmallow, your uncle,” he whispered by my ear, an attempt at light-heartedness in his tone. “I think he really likes me.”

  And somewhere inside me, I appreciated him trying.

  Aunt Bedelia finally cleared her throat, and all of us leaned in to listen to whatever she’d just found.

  “It says here that this was a magical siphon spell. Draíocht an sraonadh —to usurp the power. From what I’m seeing, the goal is to siphon the power from the main source through sacrificial magic. The magic is to be held in an organic vessel for safekeeping until it is meant to be imbibed into something. The vessel must also be powerful enough to hold it.”

  It was almost impossible not to clench my jaw as I spoke. “And if it’s not?” I already knew the answer to this… I had seen it for myself, hadn’t I? My hands shook as Sully held me even tighter.

  “The magic may… overwhelm the vessel. And ultimately… destroy it.”

  The glowing haze hovering around Fiona-Leigh seemed so innocent just to look at it. One would never guess it had the power to kill her as if she were nothing but an empty container.

  “A sacrifice must have been made. Any guesses on what she used?” Uncle Gardner asked.

  My voice wavered but I cleared it, trying not to sound as absolutely terrified as I was. “My money is on one of the Sylphs in the tree. They interfered with her spell and it made her angry. I think she cursed them all, starting with the one that was her sacrifice. It wasn’t a lightning strike at all,” I said, turning to Erie. “It was Delaney.”

  Erie could only nod, though her nose was stuck in a book anyway, as if she wasn’t really listening to me. “Actually…” she began, pulling herself to her feet. “According to this book, sacrificial magic doesn’t have to be permanent. Not technically. One act of sacrifice can take the place of another. It has the potential to break the siphoning spell and hopefully release the magic inside of her.”

  I was on my feet in an instant, striding over to her to see the book. “I’ll do whatever it takes. What do I need to do?”

  Aunt Bee wasted no time coming over from where the three of them were huddled over the An Leabhar na Ciallmhar, glancing over Erie’s shoulder. “Tristan! Grab these things from the kitchen! Dried marigold, black salt, wormwood, the jar of lacewings! Go ahead, get started, lad!” she said, continuing to bark out the whole list to him.

  “Gwen this is… I don’t know. To take the magic away from Fiona-Leigh, we have to sacrifice magic to the spell to replace it. And none of us have any to give,” Erie said, shaking her head as she followed the rest of the entry with her finger. “I’m not sure how we could.”

  “Wait, so you don’t have magic, then?” Sully asked, totally confused.

  “It’s… complicated,” I said, the gears already turning in my head. Surely there had to be some kind of magic we could utilize… What about the Fae? They were magical creatures!

  “It would have to be Witch magic, dear,” Aunt Bedelia said, her eyes sad as she read my mind. “Witch magic to call to Witch magic.”

  I nodded, ridiculous tears burning in my eyes. “If not the Fae, then how? How can I sacrifice something for her I don’t have?” The pleading in my voice was desperate, fractured. Just like the massive crack going right down the center of my heart.

  She hesitated, clearly feeling every bit of what I was feeling. “There might be something. But Gwen, I don’t know if it’s wise if you—”

  “Let me stop you right there,” I said, holding up my hand. “If there’s a way, I want to know. I don’t care if it’s wise or not. I want my daughter safe. And she is not safe like this.” We all looked at her sleeping form, the steady shallow rise and fall of her chest the only thing that told me she was still in the realm of saving.

  Aunt Bee nodded, looking between Uncle Gardner and Aunt Ginny. Tristan came back into the parlor with his arms around a huge bowl full of everything she’d listed for him.

  “There is a magic that can work for her. Your magic, Gwennie. The one you know best of all—a mother’s love for her child is one of the simplest forms of magic, but strongest, too.”

  I clapped my hands together, rolling with it. Anything to take a crack at healing my baby was worth the effort to me. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  But Aunt Bedelia shook her head. “We don’t really know what it entails to sacrifice it for her, though. We need to do some research first, maybe see if we can buy her some time—”

  “Nope. Not going to happen. She doesn’t have time, and I’m not wasting a single moment. I don’t care what it takes—I’ll give all of it. Even… even myself.”

  “What does that mean?” Sully said slowly, turning his head to look full-on at me. “You can’t mean that, Gwen.”

  “Of course I do,” I said simply, taking the huge bowl from Tristan and settling it on the floor in front of me. “If it comes down to it, if it’s between me or my daughter, I’m choosing my daughter every time. She’s deserves a fighting chance and I will do what I need to, to give it to her.”

  No one spoke, not even Sully, though I could feel his emotions coming off of him in waves. I got started, sifting through the ingredients and setting everything up around me to make the potion. Sully was the first to start handing me things as I measured and poured what I needed. In a morbid and twisted way, it almost felt like those nights at his place, cooking together in his kitchen.

  Erie sat down, tears in her eyes, to grind lacewings and dried marigold with the mortar and pestle. The three of us worked together efficiently, handing off the mix to Aunt Bedelia who had already put on the teakettle to boil fresh moon water, the last ingredient.

  No one dared asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this—there was no point. Of course I was. Whatever she needed from me, I would give. I’d given up my family, my hometown, my silly notions of becoming the Inquisitor one day… I’d already given so much for her, not that it was anyone’s choice but mine. There was simply no argument here.

  Pouring the mixture into the hot water, I stirred it with precise accuracy. Twenty-one times clockwise. Seven times counterclockwise. I didn’t bother letting it cool off, I was ready to get it over with, and I pinched my nose to help keep the taste neutral as I drained the liquid as quickly as I could. My throat closed around the liquid reluctantly, and I swallowed it, more tears forming in my eyes.

  “Now, lass. Go to her now,” Aunt Bedelia said so softly I was almost sure I’d imagined it.

  I settled down on my knees beside her, taking one last long look at her, drawing in a shuddering breath, and smiling when I thought of her chubby baby cheeks, the red locks I used to carefull
y smooth down when I fed her, the toothless smile when she learned to ride her bike without her training wheels, the first book she could finish on her own, her freckles sprinkled across her face, just like her father…

  “I love you, sweet girl. Come back to us, okay?” I whispered into her ear, clutching onto her, clasping my arms around her as tightly as possible, trying to will this to work.

  There was a tugging sensation from behind my navel, like part of me was attached to some kind of tripwire that had been set off. Stars blasted behind my eyelids and I fought to remain aware of everything around us, pushing my very own will and sacrifice into the spell, envisioning a crack growing in it.

  A static zip of energy went up around us, and it was like something was being sucked from inside my head… and there was… nothing.

  I threw my head back, my eyes wide open but unseeing. Everything was rushing out of me—words, colors, sense of time—everything but my will to hold on to her. I was so close… I could feel the edges of the spell caving in… just a little… more.

  The lights went out. And so did I.

  I blinked, surprised to no longer be on the floor by Fiona-Leigh. Instead, I was in a bed in a completely different room. The sky outside suggested it was still the early evening.

  “Ow,” I groaned, rubbing at the back of my head. Had I hit it on something?

  “Oh—oh! She’s awake!”

  I gingerly turned my head toward the sound of the Sully’s voice. “Where…? Where am I?”

  Maybe it was one of those weird dreams where it feels so real but it’s not. Maybe everything that happened earlier was just a crappy dream and I was back home in bed.

  But Sully was sitting next to me on the bed, feeling my forehead. “How are you feeling? You scared the hell out of me. Out of all of us.”

  If this was all real… “Where is she?” I said, throwing back the covers from my legs. “Did it—did it work? Is she safe?”

  “Whoa, whoa, Gwen. You gotta stay in bed. Your head hit the floor pretty hard. I don’t want you to end up with a concussion,” he said, trying to keep me from getting all the way up.

  “I want Fi! Where is she?” I demanded.

  “Mama! Oh my god, you’re okay! You’re okay! I’m here, I’m fine. But you… I can’t believe you...” And with that, Fiona-Leigh launched herself at me, neither of us caring about anything else in the world. “Don’t ever, ever, ever do that again,” she cried against my shoulder. “Don’t you know what you did?”

  I inhaled the soft scent of her hair, the tension that had been riding high in every part of me finally softening up. “I don’t care. Whatever it was, it was worth it, honey.”

  My eyes were heavy and I could feel the exhaustion in me pulling me back under, but I squeezed her hand and smiled.

  It was worth it.

  16

  The New Witch In Town

  I didn’t know which part was the biggest news of the night.

  The part where I slept an entire day after the sacrificial magic potion?

  The part where at some point between then and now, Sully and my Uncle Gardner had started chatting like they were old friends?

  The part where the sacrifice I had ultimately given up wasn’t my life, but my ability as a Witch to wield magic?

  Or…

  The part where my human daughter who wanted nothing more than to be a part of this world with us, had gained access to her own magic?

  “It’s a little weird, I can’t lie,” I admitted, shrugging. “But I’ll get used to it.”

  I sat at the foot of the bed, frowning at the piles of clothes all neatly sitting there waiting to be packed into our suitcases. Sure, I’d done laundry probably a billion times in my life ever since the move to Midnight Pitch. But it was always a nice break to come here and not have to worry about any of that.

  Sully placed his hand on mine, though there was a hint of something mischievous in his dark eyes. “I find out that my girlfriend is literally a Witch with magical powers, and then she has to go and do the heroic thing and lose them all to save the most important thing in her life. It figures.”

  I made a face. “It figures, huh? What figures is that after all that, I’m the one who gets stuck living the most boring human life, with possibly the most unboring human out there. Tell me how that shakes out.”

  “Hey! What about me?” Fi called out in the hallway before walking into the room.

  “Well, you’re not really a human anymore per se, are you?” I said, shrugging again. “All the stuff Aunt Bee said about how human and Witches only have human children…”

  “Wasn’t exactly right, yes I know! We just talked about this. Even though my powers were just dormant, doesn’t mean I’m a real Witch… Wait. Unless it does?” Her dark blue eyes went wide.

  Fiona-Leigh firmly picked up my wand from the vanity, flicking it in a check-mark motion until tiny blue sparks erupted from the end of it. She let out a particularly high-pitched squeal.

  “This is the coolest. Seriously, the coolest thing!” she laughed, her face dazed as she held the wand closer to inspect it. “I honestly don’t know how Witches can get anything done. All I want to do is magic!”

  The corner of my mouth quirked up. “Welcome to the club.”

  I did take a few moments to myself to get my things in order—Aunt Bee, probably sensing that I need the space to process— ordered everyone out to give me a chance to think to myself. I didn’t really want to, of course.

  How could I explain how it felt without magic lying in wait inside of me? It was sort of like an extra pocket of empty space in my body… muscle memory, maybe? Or maybe it was the space I always held my magic and just never realized. Either way, it didn’t matter now.

  Not that Fiona-Leigh saw it the same way. Precisely five minutes after she came down from her euphoric high of finding out she had magic inside of her now, she put what happened to me all on herself.

  She sat swinging her legs off the edge of the sofa, frowning at me. “There has to be something we can do to get your magic back.”

  It was no use trying to smile—she knew when I meant it and when I didn’t. “I refuse to take any chances. If I renege on a spell, it could potentially reattach itself to you and I’m not going through that again. No way, no how.”

  “But it’s part of who you are,” she said, sliding off the couch and to her feet. “You can’t just cut off your arm and say it’s better that way.”

  “You can if the arm is gangrenous and you don’t have a choice. It’s okay, Fi. I will get used to it. I mean… we literally live in a world without magic. It’s not like I can use it back home anyway.”

  “It’s not fair, Mom. You can’t just cut out your magic and then suddenly I have all of it! This is my fault…I shouldn’t have kicked that stupid tree.”

  I tugged at her hand, rubbing my thumb over top of her freckled skin. “You did what you thought you had to do, honey. No one can blame you for that—you saw an opportunity to stop Delaney and you took it. That’s a move that a highly trained Shadow Hand would make, and I’m proud of you for doing what you did. Really, I am.”

  And that had been that. I didn’t want to dwell on what was going on inside me because the fact of the matter was that I would’ve done it all over again as many times as necessary, to make sure she was happy and healthy on the other end of it. Everyone was just going to have to accept the fact that I was no longer a Witch.

  Uncle Gardner tried a different approach with me. After thanking me for helping them close both poor Tiberius’ case, and finding Delaney before her untimely death, he of course decided to take another crack at reeling me back into the MARC.

  “I know you like your job at the newspaper, Gwendolyn! I’m simply offering you what you can take as a promotion.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at his persistence. “But sir, there’s no point in this anymore. My powers are gone, remember? What good could I possibly do for you?”

  He fixed me with
one of those power stares of his. “Which is exactly why I need you. I need someone I can trust who has one foot in each Realm—both ours and the Human Realm. We need someone to help us oversee the Interrealm Relations Department. It’s the perfect fit for you, really.”

  I groaned. “And how often would I need to show up to this so-called job?”

  “It is a job, Gwendolyn. One tends to show up every day as necessary to ensure everything is running—what? Why are you laughing?”

  “Sorry,” I giggled, wishing he could hear how ridiculous he sounded. “Uncle Gardner. I can’t drive back and forth every day to the gateway. You know how much of a pain it is for me.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “I know. I’ve made it a little easier for you in that regards. If I can handle that and make sure you’re taken care of… would you accept the offer?”

  Fiona-Leigh was busy in the kitchen laughing at something Sean said as he attempted to show her how to light candles with just the wand. It hit me square in the gut, just how happy she looked.

  I looked back at Uncle Gardner and sighed. “I… will think it over. But I am not making any promises.”

  “Oh good. I wouldn’t mind access to whatever convenience you’ve scraped up for our dear Gwendolyn here,” Oisín said, darting into the room from who knew where. He’d been gone the entirety of our ordeal with Fiona-Leigh and then me, and boy did he get a rude awakening when he finally graced us with his presence.

  “Hag’s pond has much better fish for sushi, anyway,” he added, yawning into his furry paw.

  I settled into the couch next to Sully, watching him watch everyone else. “My family is a little crazy,” I said against his arm before placing a kiss on his cheek and leaning into it.